


Transcendence

by DaScribbla



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: (some), Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Black Swan, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Eventual sibling incest, Femdom, Jealousy, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Psychological Horror, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:40:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7796875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaScribbla/pseuds/DaScribbla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were still applauding beyond the curtain. Thomas laughed despite the blazing pain in his gut and said something, but the audience's cheers drowned out the words. He wondered if there would be flowers in his dressing room.</p><p>Black Swan AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you read Nepenthe, this is the Thomas-centric work I mentioned at the end. If you missed it in the tags, this is indeed a Black Swan AU (like, the film), so if psychological/body horror isn't your thing, I'd sit this one out. Also, just to be clear, I don't know ballet. All info is gotten from the internet.
> 
> As ever, big S/O to mjolnir-s-master for putting up with all my initial brainstorming on this one. You're honestly the best.

The rash had returned overnight.

Twisting in the sheets to provide some longed-for friction against his back, Thomas was not immediately aware of the concern on his sister’s face.

“Don’t scratch at it.” Lucille reached over to catch Thomas’s hand before he could bring it to his skin. 

“’m not.” His voice was heavy from sleep.

“How long has it been going on?”

“Just noticed it this morning.”

“Hm.” With insistent hands, Lucille rolled Thomas onto his stomach. Fingertips traced lightly over one shoulder blade and Thomas shivered. “You’ve definitely got something there. Cut your nails, alright?” A kiss pressed to the back of his head, into his hair. 

“Alright,” he murmured into the pillow. 

“Oh no, you don’t,” she said, curling her hands under his shoulders and hoisting him up. “Don’t fall asleep. You’ve got to be awake for today.”

“What’s happening today?” he asked muzzily, groaning as he sat up. 

“Auditions, dearest.” There was a complaint of bed springs as Lucille rose from the bed. Thomas pointedly kept his gaze trained on the ceiling as Lucille pulled off the shirt she slept in -- one of Thomas’s, fact -- and searched for clothes. 

“You still can’t tell me what they’re for?” 

“That would give you an unfair advantage.”

“Fair enough.” 

Lucille was a white blur in his periphery. Thomas turned his head to face the window, away from his sister. 

“You’ll like it. I can tell you that.”

“Alright.”

White blur, turning black as his sister dressed. Thomas swallowed hard.

“Don’t forget to stretch.”

He grinned sleepily. “Have I ever?” 

Footsteps over the ivory carpet, a kiss pressed against his temple.

“And make sure you eat something. You can look now,” she added. Thomas rolled over and found her in one of her customary pencil skirts, blouse half-buttoned. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said, squeezing one bare shoulder before leaving the bedroom, presumably to brush her teeth.

Thomas swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbed ruefully at his toes, stood, slid off his sweatpants, and searched through the dresser he and his sister shared to find some clothes. Lucille had used some of her perfume today; he could smell it, heavy and dark in the air around him. 

*

Stretches, water, grapefruit, and a bus ride later, he and Lucille paused on the steps of the theater they called their workplace. Thomas gripped his sister’s arm as he stared, wide-eyed, at the posters listed outside.

“ _Swan Lake,”_ he breathed. “Tchaikovsky.” He turned to her. “Did you do this because --”

“-- because I knew it was your favorite? Partially, yes.” Lucille smiled at his expression. “And yes,” she continued as they headed up the steps towards the entrance,  “you’re in the running.”

He frowned, confused. “I am?”

“You’ve been here long enough, I think.” 

*

_“Swan Lake.”_ Lucille stared around at her company, arms folded. To Thomas’s eyes she looked like a chess piece, carved out of marble and ebony, reflected around the mirrored walls of the studio. “I’m sure you all saw the posters outside. Do I need to explain the plot to anyone?”

“Princess turned into a swan and needs love to break the spell,” spoke up a petite girl with blonde hair cut in a pageboy whom Thomas didn’t recognize. “She meets Prince Charming, but he’s distracted by her evil twin. So she hurls herself off a cliff and finds liberty in her death.” 

“Well done.” Lucille nodded to her. “Everyone, this is Edith. She’s replacing Enola this season.” Edith waved, leaning one hand on the bar at her side. “It’s done _ad nauseum_ , I know,” Lucille continued, “but we’re going to strip it down. Make it raw. And,” she added, “I intend to cast not according to gender, but to ability.” Thomas could have sworn her eyes lingered on him for the briefest moment. His heart fluttered. “Which of you, I wonder,” she said, “can embody both the white swan and the black? Soloists, auditions start in --” she consulted the watch around her bony wrist -- “twenty minutes. Corps, you go to your regular rehearsals.”

“Not a bad deal,” said Alan from beside Thomas. Thomas gave him a cursory glance. There was little doubt who _he’d_ end up playing. The role of the prince required muscle and masculinity, both of which Alan possessed, even in tights. 

“I’ve kept you long enough.” Lucille clapped her hands twice. “Get where you need to be.”

*

It was difficult to be unaware of the looks being exchanged when Thomas took the floor of the studio they’d set aside for auditions. Family favoritism was to be expected to some degree in theatre, but knowing that wouldn’t keep the others from raising eyebrows and suspecting a plot whenever he auditioned. Which was probably the reason Lucille, as director, kept him mostly in the background. Still… she wouldn’t do that to him on his favorite, would she? 

Thomas banished the distracting thoughts from his mind and stood at the center of the floor, fighting the urge to tug the sleeves of his henley further down to cover his wrists. There was no point, they’d ride up again when he started dancing anyway...

“I want to see your white swan and your black swan,” Lucille said from where she stood, leaning with her arms folded against the mirrors. 

Thomas nodded, lifting his arms as he rose en pointe. He was one of the few men in the company who did it regularly, mostly because he had the body frame that wouldn’t make it look ridiculous. Piano floated out behind him and he took the first step forward. Step, step, step. Step, step, step. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… Aside from the music, the studio was utterly silent. Even his sister, who tended to call suggestions while her company danced, stayed quiet, knowing from experience that one sound out of the ordinary could send him reeling. One, two, three, four… the snatches of her face that he caught between pirouettes was half-smiling, open, a little proud, the way it always when she watched him dance… six, seven, eight, _end._

He finished demi-pointe, arms extended, facing forward with his eyes carefully focused on nothing. After a few seconds he dared a glance at his sister. She was smiling very faintly. 

“Black swan now,” she said.

He nodded shakily and turned away, taking a deep breath before again facing Lucille and the mirrors. 

_Don’t fuck it up_ , he told himself and nodded to the pianist in the corner to begin. 

Five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three… Lucille was counting on him for this one… six, seven, eight. Fouettés. Distantly aware of the sweat patches on his shirt, he whirled around, leg kicking forward as the other spun completely… around, around, around, _watch it, you’re traveling_ , six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen --

The metallic crash of the studio door sent him tumbling, only catching himself by one palm on the ground, knees bent in a crouch. The new girl -- Edith -- stood by the now-closed door, one small hand on the handle. She looked about as startled as he felt. He panted. 

“Sorry,” she whispered, flushing. Thomas resisted the urge to glare -- that was was unprofessional -- and quickly picked himself up with as much dignity as he could muster with tears pricking at his eyes. 

“Should I try again?” he asked, trying not to sound too desperate. His eyes pleaded, but his sister’s face was entirely unreadable.

“That’s alright,” she said finally and Thomas’s heart sank. “I’ve seen enough, thank you.”

Stomach churning as his face burned, he picked up his duffel bag and left the studio. On his way out, he caught the edge of Edith’s perfume. Bright, clean, floral. His stomach roiled again.

The moment he was out of the studio, he covered his mouth and bolted for the restroom across the hall. 

*

Spin, leg _out,_ spin, leg _out_ , spin, leg _out._

Thomas’s arms ached with the effort of holding them above his head at the correct angle, fingers placed _just so_ , as he spun again and again. He was too out of breath to count out loud, so the numbers screamed in his head as he danced: _twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two._

He had just enough presence of mind to end gracefully before sinking on shaking legs to the hardwood floor in front of the mirror. He and Lucille had arrived home an hour ago and he’d spent the whole of that hour in the guest bedroom they’d repurposed as a practice room for Thomas. Despite his exhaustion, he grinned at his reflection, wiping sweat from his forehead.

_Thirty-two._ He’d done it.

A knock on the door.

“Yeah?” he called. His breath was beginning to even out. The door creaked open to reveal Lucille. 

“Dinner’s about ready, if you want it.”

“Thanks. Think I’ll shower first, though,” he added, standing up on wobbly legs and going to the door. Sweat trickled down his spine beneath his shirt. “I’m pretty disgusting. By the way --” he put a hand out and touched his sister’s elbow as she nodded and turned to go -- “I did it. The thirty-two fouettés. Just now.” It was impossible to keep the eagerness out of his voice. 

“Well done,” Lucille said, smiling a little. “Make that shower quick, alright? This sauce isn’t going to wait forever.”

“But --”

“Thomas.” Her tone was kind, but firm. “We don’t talk shop at home, remember?”

He nodded grudgingly, stomach churning with anxiety yet again, and went to the bathroom to shower off his sweat. 

*

The mirror was still fogged-over in places from the shower when Thomas twisted around to get a look at his back in its reflection. The rash didn’t seem to have faded since this morning: his shoulder blades and the skin around them was pink and looked raw. He grimaced and rubbed at it with his fingers. Not much better. 

Sighing, he reached for the Bio-Oil that stood by the sink and rubbed some first into the rough array of scars on his wrists, as usual, and then into his shoulder blades. Perhaps that would do it.

He reached for his dressing gown and went out to the kitchen. There was a bowl of spaghetti waiting for him on the table, steaming a little. 

“Mmm.” He sat down across from his sister and twirled some pasta around his fork. “Smells good.” Lucille gave him a smile and glanced back at the black-bound notebook opened before her, sucking absently on the end of her pen. Thomas dropped his eyes and took a bite of his spaghetti. “Tastes good, too,” he added. “Is that the cast list?” He nodded to the notebook. 

“Mm-hm.”

He knew better than to ask her what she was thinking. That never got him anywhere. So he kept eating -- his legs felt unusually unsteady after the fouettés and he’d need some protein and a good night’s rest to relax them. Although the hot water from the shower probably had done the trick...

Silence. Lucille made some notes with her pen and then returned it to her mouth, frowning down at the page. Thomas carefully averted his gaze when she caught him watching her.

“Make sure you sleep well tonight,” she said at last. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.” Thomas resisted the urge to read at all into that statement -- perhaps it was a hint she’d cast him in the lead role, perhaps it was just a warning, sister to brother -- and just nodded. Lucille stood up from her own place and walked behind him, pressing her lips into his hair as she pulsed his shoulders with her fingers. “You’re like a drum,” she murmured. “Want me to give you a backrub?” Thomas nodded. 

“Thanks.”

“Finish up your dinner and we’ll do that.” Her fingers found one of the pressure points in his neck and Thomas hissed. “Shhh…” Lucille lay her cheek against the top of his head. “You’re a beautiful dancer, you know that?”

“Thank you.”

“Much better than I ever was.”

“You were beautiful, too,” Thomas protested, turning to look at her. 

“I’m better at bossing people around than I am at pirouettes, I think we can all agree.”

“You can do anything you put your mind to. You’re a miracle.” He stood up, stretching and twisting his neck. 

“You don’t want the rest of your dinner?”

“I fill up quickly, you know that.” Gathering the dishes up, he went to the kitchen to load them in the dishwasher and wrap up the leftovers. Lucille leaned against the wall, watching him. 

“You’re too skinny. Even for a dancer.”

“It’s the only way anybody can --” he stifled a yawn -- “lift me.”

“Come on. You need to get to bed.” They went down the hall together, Thomas nestling into her as she put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. Her perfume was close in his nose from his angle, with his face nearly in her neck. “You go get dressed,” she said, picking up her own sleepwear from the floor. “I’ll change in the bathroom and be back in a flash.”

His hair hadn’t quite dried yet, leaving wet marks on his dressing gown, the back of his neck, and now his T-shirt. He’d have to dry it off before they went to bed, as Lucille didn’t like wet bedclothes, but it would be alright for now. 

A rapping sound came from the bathroom door and Lucille stepped back inside, her gray, oversized sweatshirt slipping off her shoulder, covering her hands, and nearly reaching her white knees. 

“Come on. Let me give you that backrub.” He nodded, obediently lying on his stomach and smiling when she settled beside him on the bed, laying her hands flat at the center of his back on either side of his spine and then pressed gently down. “You’re awfully tense,” she murmured. “Is the new season stressing you at all?”

He nodded, awkwardly with his head turned to the side, cheek against the pillow. “Yeah.”

“There’s nothing to be worried about.” She was adopting that soothing tone she often used when doing this. “You’re going to be just fine, dearest. And I know that you’ll excel no matter what you do.” 

He wanted to ask her about the part again, but there was no point in fighting a losing battle.

“How are your wrists lately?”

“The same,” he said.

“You’re using the Bio-Oil?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Good.” Harder pulses now, into his shoulders and his haunches. Lucille’s cherry blossom conditioner was strong in the pillow by his face. He closed his eyes and breathed it in. “Have you been… _dreaming…_ very much lately?”

“No more than usual.” He paused. “I’m having some nightmares about… about it.”

“Again?” Lucille touched his cheek and he opened his eyes to find her staring down at him in concern. “About Mother and --”

“-- yes.”

It was a long time before he felt her hands touch his back again. “It’s all over, dearest,” she murmured. Thomas groaned as her hands found one of the knots in his muscles, gently working it loose. “They can’t touch us anymore. They’re far, far away…”

He let her voice wash over him and closed his eyes. 

*

When they reached the theatre the next morning and Thomas had warmed up, he went to Lucille’s office, steeling himself before knocking on the door. She opened it without much surprise, standing back to let him step in.

“Thomas?” 

He looked around her office -- it was the part of the theatre he saw the least and was unlike any other room he’d ever seen. She’d hung her butterfly collections on the walls, loose sheet music strewn across furniture. By contrast, her desk was perfectly neat. Lucille leaned against the front of it, crossing her arms.

“What is it?”

She sounded harried. Her bun was already starting to come loose, dark little curls brushing her neck beside her collar. Thomas swallowed and found his tongue.

“I did the fouettés,” he said. “All of them.”

“I know,” she said. Just like last night. Cool and matter-of-fact.

“I just… I just wanted you to know…” Already he felt the pull towards the door. This had been a mistake, he should leave before he dug himself any deeper into his grave. 

“Why?” Lucille cocked her head to the side, gazing at him expectantly. In all these years he’d never quite grown used to her habit of not blinking. “Why did you want me to know that?”

“I just…” He sighed. _Might as well take the bull by the horns._ “I came to ask for the part.” To his relief, she didn’t ask him what part he wanted -- she probably knew him too well for that. Lucille sat back on her desk and crossed her legs, a furrow in her brow. 

“Thomas,” she began, “I already cast it.”

“And?”

She sighed. “And I gave it to Edith. She seemed the more viable choice. I’m sorry,” she added. “I know you wanted the role, but… you just don’t have enough black swan in you. You’re so tense all the time. Got to loosen up before you can play her. I gave you Benno.”

Thomas swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. Dammit, why did he have to always cry at the littlest things… He turned away, heading for the door.

“Okay,” he said thickly. “Thanks.”

“Is that it?” 

He turned back. Couldn’t he just go to the rehearsal room like everyone else and forget this ever happened? “What?” 

Lucille slid off the desk and came towards him. “You’re just going to give up like that?”

“I mean… if you gave the part to Edith…”

“You saw me make the cast list last night,” she said, “and yet you still came here today to ask for it. You must have thought there was some chance of changing my mind.”

Thomas shook his head. “No. If you’ve cast Edith -- I don’t want to make trouble --”

“See? That’s the problem, Thomas. You just accept what people tell you.” Lucille spread her hands wide. “Dare I say it, you’re a little too much of a bottom to carry off the role, okay?”

Thomas bristled even as he flushed. “And Edith isn’t?” 

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. It was unprofessional at best, catty at worst. He deserved whatever smack-down he got. 

Lucille burst out laughing. 

“Discrediting your rival,” she said finally, grinning. “Now that’s a black swan.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Run along, would you? I’ll be out in a minute or two.”

*

“Hey!” 

Thomas turned at the call behind him and found Edith herself, blonde and tiny, hurrying up to him. 

“Hi. Edith, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah. You're Thomas, right?” He nodded. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then crossed her arms -- Thomas noticed that she had a face that seemed to belong more to the nineteenth century than the twenty-first. It clashed a great deal with her sweatpants and camisole. “Listen, I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” she said. “For making you fall. Wasn’t intentional, I promise.”

Thomas swallowed hard. He would _not_ blame her. It was almost certainly an accident, after all. “That’s alright.”

“You were doing great up until then, though.”

“Thanks.” He couldn’t tell if that was meant to be a backhanded compliment or not. “Didn’t see you dance,” he added, “but I’m sure you were fine.” _You must have been_ , he muttered privately, _since you got the only role that matters._ She grinned, almost as if she’d heard his thought. 

“I do my best.”

“Hey, listen --” He touched her arm, pulled her to the side behind one of the columns. A pair of other dancers passed by; one of them whistled and Thomas immediately flushed. Edith just rolled her eyes. “Hey, just so you know,” he said, “er, I was talking with Lucille earlier and she said she gave you the part.”

Edith stared at him. 

“Excuse me?” Her eyes were huge, her voice very quiet. “ _The_ part?”

“Yeah.” Thomas fought the urge to cry; it was coming again, hot pressure behind his eyes. “Congratulations.”

“You’re certain?” Edith covered her mouth with her hands, palms pressed together. She was grinning in spite of herself. “She actually said that?”

Thomas nodded. “You got it,” he whispered. Only someone with a rock in place of a heart could have been anything but pleased for her -- Christ, she was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet -- but _he_ just felt robbed. Oh, it was stupid, it was possessive and just asking for trouble when performers latched onto roles like that, but fuck him, he’d done it anyway. _Mine. Mine mine mine._ If she hadn’t walked through the door, he might be in her place now. 

One of the other ballerinas passed by and caught Edith by the shoulder, whispering _it’s up._

No way to mistake what she meant. Edith met his gaze, eyes flashing, and then turned, squaring her shoulders as she headed down the hall. Measured steps. Controlling her euphoria. 

_It’s probably for the best,_ Thomas told himself as he headed after her, keen to at least keep up appearances. _Nobody really wants a man_ en pointe _for the swan queen. It looks stupid no matter what your build is…_

The crowd around the list posted on the door was already thick and Thomas heard his name called from somewhere within it. 

“There he is!” 

Somebody patted him on the back as he melted into the crowd, squinting, looking for _Benno_ on the sheet. Around him, people were greeting each other in a flurry of high spirits, as if they hadn’t been willing to stab each other in the back two hours before.

“Congratulations!”

“Hey --” That was Alan, shaking his hand. “Looks like we’ll be working together.” 

Thomas frowned. “Don’t we always --” He saw the top billing. 

_SWAN QUEEN - THOMAS SHARPE_

Holy fuck. 

He sucked in a breath, let it out in a harsh gasp. Somebody was hugging him, he returned it blindly, the black sans serif letters flashing behind his eyelids when he blinked. 

He’d gotten it. Somehow, he’d fucking landed it. 

Looking over the heads of the crowd he searched for his sister, but there was no sign of her. There _was_ , however, Edith, leaning against the wall outside the mob and looking sick. Shit. He pushed through the sea of well-wishers with a murmur of word -- _yes, thank you, thank you, thanks so much, yes --_ until he reached her. 

“Listen,” Edith said before he could open his mouth. “I’m new, I don’t know how you do things over here, but if that was your idea of a joke, that’s -- that’s not fucking funny.”

“What -- no!” Thomas shook his head. “I swear that’s what she told me! I wouldn’t do that!” He laughed mirthlessly. “I don’t even know you.”

“Really?” Edith asked and it took Thomas a moment to realize that she was talking about the “joke,” not his knowing her. “You really didn’t know?”

“I had no idea.”

She regarded him for a moment and then nodded. “Okay.” She nodded. “Thanks for at least coming over and clearing that up.”

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah.” 

He was halfway down the hall when he heard her call his name.

“Yeah?”

She half-smiled. “Congrats.”

Her smile was infectious: Thomas felt it pulling insistently at his own lips. “Thanks.”

*

“Tell me what that was all about?” 

He hadn’t waited to knock on Lucille’s door, but gone in unannounced. Lucille settled back in her chair, looking unsurprised. She seemed to have been expecting some sort of outburst. 

“You wanted the role.”

“You knew that from the beginning,” Thomas said. “And you still weren’t planning on giving it to me. What changed your mind?”

She smirked. “ _And Edith isn’t?_ ” Her voice was a flawless imitation of Thomas’s, right down to the tone in which he’d said it earlier that day. “Maybe you’ve got a bit of bite after all.” 

Thomas shook his head. “It was that simple?”

“Well,” she said, and now there was real humor in her voice. “You’re not a terrible dancer, either.”

“I’m going to be perfect,” he said. “The best lead you’ve ever had, I swear.”

Lucille reached for one of his hands and kissed his knuckles, then pressed her cheek to them. 

“I’m sure you will.” 

The bare pride in her eyes made Thomas feel as though he’d simultaneously run a marathon and twisted a tendon. There was no way he could live up to her expectations, he was going to fuck it all up… 

“I’ll be perfect,” he repeated. 

If he said it enough times, perhaps that would make it so.

*

The bubbling goodwill from the fellow members of his company and the astronomical stress of what he’d agreed to take on eventually drove him into the back stall of the nearest restroom -- a not-uncommon hiding spot for him, these days. Thomas gagged once more into the toilet, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and reached out to flush, only to be stayed by a sudden crescendo of conversation in the bathroom. A group seemed to have entered, men and women. Signs on the bathroom doors were treated more like guidelines here. 

“... don’t know how he fucking did it. Was I seriously the only one who saw him fall during auditions?”

“Yeah, well, at least we know that this one didn’t lick her pussy or something for the role --”

“-- I _hope,_ you see the way he hangs on her all the time? --”

Thomas swallowed more bile, pressing the back of his hand against his mouth.

“... mean, he’s a beautiful dancer, but you just know that come opening night, somebody’s going to cough in the front row and _splat --”_

“-- honestly I’d almost feel better about it if he _had_ licked her pussy --”

“ _Je-_ sus!”

“-- no, seriously, because then at least we know he did something to get it. This is just favoritism.”

Thomas waited until they had gone and gagged into the toilet again. 

*

“You alright?”

Lucille was looking at him from her place across from him on the bus they took to and from the theater. He nodded, not eager to tell her about any of what had been said, in regards to both Edith and the people in the restroom. 

“Fine.”

He looked back out the window, the darkness outside so violently different from the piercing brightness of the bus lights inside. His reflection looked abnormal, almost skeletal. The flash of a car headlight made it seem, for a moment, as if his reflection had grinned at him. 

He turned back to Lucille and closed his eyes. 

His back itched again. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re not comfortable with this, are you?” Lucille said at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK! HAPPY HOLIDAYS, Y'ALL.
> 
> Chapter-specific warnings include some body horror, drug use, and sex whilst intoxicated.

“It’ll be all right. Just smile. I’ll talk for us both.”

Thomas nodded, took a deep breath, then lifted his chin as his sister straightened his tie for him. They were on the steps of the venue Lucille had booked several months previously for the party to open the season or, as she called it when in one of her blacker moods, the annual arse-kissing-in-the-name-of-funding. The street lamps cast their glow over the steps and the cars that roared by. The headlights of one passing car briefly illuminated the fabric of Lucille’s evening gown beneath her coat: bright, brilliant scarlet. 

“There you are.” She stepped back and Thomas wondered briefly how she managed to walk so easily in those heels -- _probably the early ballet training,_ he told himself. “Let’s in.”

He took her arm and they glided inside. 

It was immediately difficult to remember her advice. _Just smile_ was easier said than done when you had to do it in front of what seemed to be an army of elderly arts patrons and dancers and God-only-knew who else. A valet took their coats and then Lucille threaded her red lace-covered arm through his once more to gracefully steer them through the minefield. Thomas felt hot and uncomfortable in his suit, so different from how his sister smiled and made small talk with every invitée. 

There were so many people, the only option was to give the speech on the stairs. Lucille stood there, one hand at the small of Thomas’s back as if to steady him, and spoke as if she’d been doing it all her life: extemporizing on the glorious season ahead of them; the new directions the company was taking the incredible talents of the company; please, for the love of God and all creation, _give us your money…_

“... as I’m sure you all know, we open this season with _Swan Lake_. I’d like to introduce you to our new star, who will play the role of the Swan Queen. My brother, Thomas Sharpe.” 

Polite applause. Thomas gave them a demure smile, the one Lucille said made people trip over themselves. At any rate, it seemed to have worked; both he and Lucille were beset by invitées the moment they descended the staircase. 

“You must be so honored,” a middle-aged woman with an incredibly sinewy neck told him. “And so _nervous!_ I remember when I was a girl, I had the opportunity to play Clara in _The Nutcracker_ , but I didn’t take it. Had too much on my plate. I always take too much on, everybody says so…”

“... a male Swan Queen?” The portly gentleman Thomas found himself addressing several minutes later looked doubtful. “I thought men didn’t dance en pointe?”

“We do, actually, sometimes,” Thomas said. “Usually for comedic effect, but --”

“You’re performing _Swan Lake_ as a comedy?”

“I said usually, not always. I’m told I carry it off rather well.” 

Eventually, he was able to disentangle himself from the conversation and immediately left the ballroom for the small, sign-less bathroom in the corridor outside. Leaning against the door, he put a hand over his mouth and the other over his stomach, trying to soothe its frantic churning. The familiar urge crept over him again, but he gritted his teeth and willed it away. He would _not_ throw up here. He would _not_. 

His stomach had other ideas. Thomas bolted for the toilet in the corner and retched, bringing up most of his dinner. One clammy, shaking hand flushed the toilet and then he went to the sink to splash some water on his face. After a moment’s hesitation, he stuck his head under the tap and swished some of the water into his open mouth. 

Standing upright, he took a long look at himself in the mirror. His lips were almost bloodless. Perhaps he could just stay in here for a while until he felt normal again and his legs weren’t so unsteady… Bracing his hands against the sides of the sink, he looked down and realized with a start that he was bleeding, the nail of his right ring finger seeping scarlet. Thomas watched, transfixed, as the blood slowly overflowed the confines of his nail bed and trickled down his knuckle, over his hand. Then he shook himself and sprang into action. Cold water from the faucet made the wound ache, but at least the blood was washed away. He sucked on the finger ruefully and then inspected it, frowning. Hangnail. So that was what it was. He was a martyr to them, always. 

Just as he began pulling on the flap of loose skin, someone knocked on the door.

“Occupied!” he called, inwardly cursing how his voice shook. Teeth gritted, he tugged on the skin -- and then hissed as the flap tore down his finger, up to the second joint where it finally detached. His eyes watered in pain. Blood dripped freely down the drain, leaving behind an orange-red residue on the slick porcelain. It was suddenly impossible to get enough air, he was shaking, his gorge rising again --

Another knock at the door.

“Occupied!” 

He looked back at his hand. Frowned.

It was completely whole. No blood. No hangnail. No tear in his skin at all. Not even a stain in the sink. Just white skin.

The knock at the door came again and Thomas sensed he couldn’t deny whoever was on the other side any longer. He steeled himself, tried to will the trembling out of his limbs as best he could, and opened the door.

Edith was standing in the doorway, her short, white lace dress unnaturally bright in the lights from the bathroom and the corridor outside. Her hair gleamed.

“Oh hi,’ she said, “I didn’t realize it was you in there.” 

“That’s all right.” Thomas moved to the side to allow her the room to go in. “You go on.”

“Hey, are you okay?” She gave him a look of concern. “You look very pale.”

He waved her off. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” God, but his head ached.

“Thomas!” He turned to see Lucille coming towards him. “Thomas, there you are, I’ve been looking for you.” She put an arm around his shoulders. “You all right?”

“Fine,” he managed and let her lead him back into the fray.

*

It felt strange to come home and rattle around their apartment in their evening clothes. Thomas watched his sister fill up a glass of water at the sink, the train of her dress like a splash of paint on the tile floor. As she drank, she reached up with her free hand and pulled the pins from her hair, letting the curls tumble down the wide expanse of her back that the dress revealed. Thomas sat down at the table and pulled off his shoes, stealing a glance at his hand as he did so. All whole, all perfectly smooth. He didn’t understand. 

It had been so _real._

“Hey, since we’re here --” Lucille turned to lean against the counter, glass gleaming in her hand -- “let’s talk about the role. Director to dancer.”

“Sure.” Thomas’s back automatically straightened and Lucille joined him at the table, taking her customary seat across from him. She bent over and slipped her heels off, groaning as she massaged her feet. 

“Okay.” She sat back up, rolling her shoulders. “How are you feeling? About taking on the role, I mean.” 

“A little overwhelmed,” Thomas said honestly. “I want to make sure I do everything right. And there’s just… there’s a lot I need to be sure of.” Lucille nodded, humming, and then rose suddenly. 

“Do you want some wine?” she called over her shoulder. “We still haven’t finished off that chardonnay.”

“Sure.” 

Lucille poured two glasses, handed one to Thomas, and sat back down. Thomas sighed as the wine went down his throat, and sat back in his chair. 

“So,” Lucille said, putting down her own glass. “As a director, I can tell you that I have absolutely no worries about you and the white swan. You’re timid, you have that frightened fragility. I’m not worried about that.” 

“But that black swan…” Thomas said. 

Lucille nodded. “Yeah, that’s going to take some work. By the way,” she added, “how do you want to play gender?”

Thomas thought for a moment. “I don’t think it matters?” he said at last. “I defer to your judgment.”

“I like the idea of a male Swan Queen,” Lucille mused. “It distances it from the norms the original ballet promotes -- a woman incapable of living without a man…” She waved a hand dismissively. “It’s passé. To say the least. And I know you of all people can present as male and still maintain that -- that delicacy.” She sipped her wine. “You’ve got the body for it.” Thomas took a sip of his wine, too. Between this and the champagne from earlier in the evening he felt rather mellow.  “So,” Lucille continued, “the black swan. She -- or he, in this case -- he’s seductive. He reels the prince in. He’s a force of nature.”

Thomas noted her tone. “You don’t think I can do that?” he asked.

“If I didn’t, I’d be sitting here talking to Edith right now,” she said. “I know I saw a flash of a black swan the other day.” She half-smiled, but the smile was soon gone. “What you need to learn is to let go. Ever since we first started taking lessons together, I’ve watched you obsess over the minutiae, determined to get every last detail right. But you never lose yourself in the dance. You don’t let yourself have fun with it.”

“I can try.”

“Good, because you’ll have to,” Lucille said. “The black swan is a charged role -- the audience should want to stampede when you and the prince do the pas de deux. There’s a -- um --” She snapped her fingers. “Sorry, can’t think of the right word…”

“A carnality?” Thomas suggested. His words slurred together, just a little.

“Yes. That’s right.” Lucille leaned back in her chair. “There is an incredible sexual power to the role. And, whatever message you choose to take away from the ballet in regards to feminine sexuality --” she laughed -- “there’s really no way around that.” Her lips twitched. “All right. Thomas, let’s call a spade a spade, I know you’re not a virgin.”

Thomas covered his mouth as he laughed, his face burning. “Jesus, Lu.”

“And I know that you like sex because I remember that… thing… you had with Enola a couple months ago.” Lucille’s voice was clipped, and she was suddenly very intent on her hand where it rested on the table.

“Right.” Clearing his throat, he shifted a little in his chair. Enola had been a sore point between them for a while; a former member of the company, she’d been the only ballerina there with an easy sense of humor and no qualms whatsoever about tying up the director’s brother. Thomas hadn’t told Lucille about her until she’d found out for herself, as dramatically as one might imagine.

“Find that part of you,” Lucille said, “and tap into it. You have to let that part rule you for a while.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

His sister shrugged. “Get laid. Don’t laugh,” she added as Thomas snorted. “I’m serious. Get laid.” Thomas reached for his glass and took a long gulp. Sex was by no means outside the realm of possibility -- he wasn’t an idiot, he looked in the mirror every day -- but the mess of hook-ups and one-night-stands seemed distasteful and overwhelming to him. The process of finding someone, working up the nerve to ask them into the bedroom, the awkwardness of the first time _every_ time… it seemed far more trouble than it was worth. If he was really honest with himself, he was a monogamous animal at heart. 

“And who would I get laid by?” he asked.

Lucille shrugged again. “Don’t know. Plenty of attractive people in the company. Plenty of attractive people in this city, if you don’t want to start drama, which I’d appreciate if you didn’t.” She grinned suddenly. “What about Edith? See if she really is a bottom.”

Thomas coughed. “No, thanks. She’s sweet, but she’s not… not my type.” Shifting in his chair again, he realized that Lucille was gazing at him, her head tilted to one side.

“You’re not comfortable with this, are you?” she said at last. Thomas let out his breath in a shaky sigh. 

“Um, honestly, no. Not really.” 

She nodded. “Don’t get laid, then. I won’t make you do something if you feel uncomfortable with it.” She reached for one of the paper napkins at the center of the table and used it to wipe off her lipstick, a dark stain on rough tissue. “But still work on it. I know that there’s a sexual person in you. You just have to find him. So… want my advice?”

“Sure?”

Lucille studied the lipstick stains on her napkin. “Find some time to love yourself, all right?” Her dress swished as she stood and came behind him, laying her hands on his shoulders and pressing a kiss into his hair. Face burning, Thomas tried to find something to say and came up empty. “You can have the shower first.” Her footsteps retreated down the hall. When he turned around, she’d already disappeared into the bedroom. 

He drained his glass of chardonnay and headed after her. 

She was standing at the vanity, peering into the mirror as she removed her earrings. The button that joined the collar of her dress at the back of her neck was undone, baring her white back completely. Thomas reached for his dressing gown and slipped into the adjoining bathroom without a word.

As he waited for the water to warm, he examined his own back in the mirror. The rash wasn’t improving. If anything it had gotten worse, spreading almost to his spine. He grimaced and scratched at it before he remembered that that would only irritate it. Sighing, he drew back the curtain and stepped beneath the spray of hot water. 

His head felt murkier than usual, but then again he’d certainly drunk more than usual, too. Perhaps that was what had happened earlier with his hand? Alcohol did weird things and he was a lightweight, he knew… 

He knew a lot of things. He was a little drunk. His back itched. And back in the bedroom, Lucille was readying for bed in the expectation that he quote _love himself a little_ unquote.

He knew his sister too well to think that she’d ever ask him about it, but she’d _know_ whether or not he had taken her advice _._ With one look, probably. It was that thought that made him close his eyes and stroke himself experimentally. Blood rose to his face and he rolled his eyes, cursing under his breath. Another stroke, firmer this time. Another. 

His nerves sparked and, biting his lower lip, his eyes still closed, he quickened the pace of his hand. Rough, fast. Not the way Enola had done it and not, truth be told, the way he liked it, but he didn’t want to take an obvious amount of time. 

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, open his eyes and look down at his erection, at his hand pumping there. The whole concept felt stupidly defiling. Lucille would say that was something he’d need to work on, but no, no, he was _not_ going to think about Lucille right now… 

She was probably waiting for him to get out of the shower so she could have a turn. He had to do this quickly. 

His breath caught in his throat as he thrust into his fist, gritting his teeth. He spilled into his hand a second later, his pulse pounding. 

He didn’t think he’d ever felt less sexual in his life. 

When he emerged from the bathroom, he found Lucille lying on her stomach across the bed in her -- no, his -- T-shirt, one of her Gillian Flynn novels open in front of her. 

“Shower’s free,” he mumbled. He’d spent a good six minutes ascertaining that every inch of it was clean. She nodded, closed the book, and headed inside. The door shut behind her with a clunk and a snap of the knob. 

They didn’t make eye contact once. 

*

Thomas bashed the toe of his left point shoe against the linoleum floor of the corridor outside the studio and tried to send himself good vibrations. _It’s going to be fine,_ he told himself. _It’s just the first rehearsal. We’ve a lot more ahead._

One especially hard strike against the floor sent something pinging out of his shoe. Frowning, he reached over and carefully picked up a shard of glass, several inches long. There was a tear in the bottom of the shoe where it had been forced in; a quick check of the other shoe found another, not quite as big. 

Thomas drew in a shaky breath. If he’d put one on without checking… His career might have ended before it even began. For a moment he considered telling Lucille, but the voices in the bathroom from the other day floated through his head. _You see the way he hangs on her all the time?_ No. Better to say nothing. It might even gain him some respect.

Rub at toes, soothe the slight ache there, slide into shoes, lace it up prettily. Iron bound in place by a satin ribbon.

*

“Flutter in. Like a butterfly.” 

Thomas resisted the urge to look over at his sister as she spoke. This, along with sex, was something else he had to grow more comfortable with. Lucille wouldn’t talk when he auditioned, but she was a spontaneous thinker and now that she was his director, she gave notes as they went along. He tried to focus on keeping his balance, then following her directions. 

“Light and airy, light and airy. You’re frightened of him,” she added. “Frightened yet curious.” Thomas, following the choreography, turned back to look at Alan, who stood at the ready, arms outstretched in the stylized manner of dancers. “Beautiful,” said Lucille. “Nicely done.”

The pas de deux went smoothly, aside from a mild lurch, quite literally in a few of the lifts.

“I’m used to lifting girls who don’t weigh over a hundred.” Alan caught Thomas’s eye. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Well done, both of you,” Lucille said. “Although I wasn’t particularly worried. It’s the black swan that’s going to need some work.” Thomas nodded, his face a careful blank. “Let’s bite the bullet and try the other pas de deux.”

_Shit._

“All right.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Alan joined him at the side and took the hand he proffered. The pianist in the corner struck the first chords _and_ \-- one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, one -- he swept to the side, letting go of Alan’s hand, looked back at him, the studio walls were spinning a little bit -- six, seven, eight -- hands on waist and _lift_ … His legs spread apart, back, apart, back, apart -- two, three, four…

“More!” Lucille called. _Concentrate, concentrate._ “Entrance us!” Another spin, a leap, back into Alan’s arms. “Attack it, attack it!”

By some miracle, the music finally stopped and they stepped apart, breathing hard. Thomas could feel sweat trickling down his spine and his temples. 

Lucille tilted her head to one side where she stood, leaning against the mirrors with her arms folded. 

“That was a very _correct_ performance,” she said at last, “but there was no emotion. None at all. I’d rather you miss the steps than miss the atmosphere. Nobody will notice that you fumbled a plié if they’re distracted by the dynamic between you. Again, and this time seduce us. Thomas --” she caught his eye -- “remember what I said last night?” Thomas nodded and willed himself not to blush. “All right,” she said. “Show me.”

He and Alan joined hands again and launched into the dance once more. 

*

“You don’t want to make a mistake,” Lucille said after the rehearsal. Thomas paused in between gulps of water from his water bottle. “That’s what’s making you so wooden during the scenes. Am I right?”

“Probably,” he said. 

Lucille was silent for a while, letting him drink. The water was dizzyingly refreshing on his parched throat. 

“Come on,” she said at last. “Let me show you something.”

She led him to the other, larger studio where the rest of the company was drilling the mass choreography. It was the final scene, where the white swan leaps from the cliff. From the doorway, they looked surprisingly smooth for the first day. But then again they’d all been going since seven that morning… 

“What am I looking for?” he asked.

“Edith,” Lucille said. “There.” She pointed discreetly to where the woman -- girl, really -- danced near the center of the line. They watched her twirl in nearly perfect synchronization with the others. The exacting part of Thomas noted the less refined nature of her technique, how she neglected her arm positions in favor of her hands and her feet. But there was undeniably a way about her. A freedom. “She’s having fun with it,” Lucille whispered. “She’s not worrying whether she’s gotten every detail right. She’s letting go and just _dancing._ ” She half-smiled, her eyes still on Edith. “There’s something very seductive in that, I find.”

Thomas nodded, his throat suddenly dry. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, you’ve made your point.”

“Have I?” Lucille turned to him. “That’s why I almost _cast_ her, Thomas. She’s enchanting. Capable of endearing herself without speaking a word. Capable of seducing us with a _ronde de jambe._ _That_ is what I need from you.” She turned back and closed the door carefully so it wouldn’t disturb the dancers. “When you’re the black swan,” she continued, “you are the most powerful person onstage. Every eye in the theater should be glued to you.” She smiled a little, touching his cheek. “And why not?” She lowered her voice. “You’re beautiful, Thomas. They’re going to notice that. They will _want_ to be seduced.” 

Thomas was suddenly aware of his heart beating more quickly, a _thud-thud-thud_ in his chest that wouldn’t go away.

“Why don’t you go rest for a while?” Lucille suggested. “You won’t be any good if your legs are all wobbly. Take an hour.” 

Thomas nodded and started down the hall. When he looked over her shoulder back at Lucille, he found that she’d opened the studio door, was watching the dancers as the tinkle of piano floated out into the corridor.

*

He snapped back into the rehearsal schedule as quickly as ever -- and while there was more pressure on him than ever before, the rigorous nature of the season felt natural. 

If only he could figure out how to fucking dance. 

It wasn’t for lack of trying -- even Lucille was telling him not to work himself so hard. At the end of the day, he figured that it was simply because there was no way he could fake a carnality he didn’t possess.

“I can’t do it,” he muttered over dinner one night, pushing the sandwich his sister offered him back across the table. Lucille frowned, but he couldn’t bring himself to force the meal down. “You should bring Edith in. Make her do it. There’s no way I’ll be able to get it in time.”

Lucille pushed the sandwich back in front of him with a stubborn frown. “I cast you, Thomas. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think you could do it.”

“Joke’s on you. I really can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Now make sure you eat.” She gave him a worried look. “You’re cutting down, I can tell. Alan says you’re a lot lighter than before.”

He took a few bites to humor her, knowing that it would all be brought back up before the day was out. His throat felt raw and abused these days.

And still, he tried to let go. When Lucille wasn’t around the apartment, he’d step into the shower, wrap a hand around himself, and try to find the freedom he was supposed to tap into. But either that freedom didn’t exist or he was simply barred from it. Every orgasm simply left him shaky, unsure of himself, and feeling sullied somehow, as if this wasn’t a normal habit. It was all so different now… 

He and Alan finished the black swan pas de deux again several days later, and Thomas immediately turned to look at his sister, who leaned against the mirrors, arms folded. She wasn’t smiling.

“Alan,” she said at last, “I’m going to be blunt here.”

“All right.”

“Would you fuck my brother?”

Thomas had to look away; his eyes were filling with tears suddenly and if he made eye contact with anyone in the room, they’d spill over and then it would all be over. They’d call him a prima donna, they’d think he was weak... 

From beside him, Alan stammered a response. “Well, um --”

“That’s what I thought,” Lucille said. She coughed. “Alan, the rest of you, you go on home. I’ve kept you late enough as it is.” Thomas turned gratefully to head for the door, but then she added, “Not you, Thomas. I want to work with you some more.”

He wiped at his eyes roughly with one hand and turned back, blinking hard. The dancers left, as did the pianist, leaving the instrument a masterless beast in the corner. For a long time, they simply looked at each other: Thomas in his T-shirt and his leggings, Lucille in her blouse and her slacks. Then she reached down and pulled off her boots. 

“Lucy?”

Lucille smoothed her hair back and stepped behind Thomas, taking each of his hands and bringing them into the correct positions. 

“Let me play the prince, all right?” she murmured.

Thomas nodded obediently. She was humming in his ear the music from the pas de deux as they stepped together, moving fluidly across the floor. Lucille hadn’t danced like this in several years and she was clearly rusty on some of the technique, but still Thomas felt far more engaged than usual. They spun around, their reflections flashing across the mirrors, and he was suddenly conscious of her nearness, her perfume in his nose, oddly stirring in ways he suddenly didn’t want to ponder.

“You’re too wooden,” Lucille whispered. “Let it go. Let it go.” Her breath was hot against the back of his neck. “There’s a lift here,” she continued as he spun back towards her embrace again, “but I don’t think I can manage that -- there we go” He returned to her arms, nestling into her without thinking about it. His heart pounded in his ribcage, but somehow the sensation didn’t frighten him the way it usually did. It was pleasant, almost --

\-- his step faltered as she pressed her lips to his throat, near his left earlobe. There was nothing but the graze of her mouth, the in-out of his breath, and his shock. 

Thomas swallowed.

“Lucy?”

As if in answer, Lucille slid one hand down his chest and over his thigh.

Her voice wasn’t quite steady when she murmured, “Feel it. Respond to it.” 

They’d ceased dancing, standing frozen in the center of the studio. Behind him, Lucille twisted her neck and blew a gentle stream of air over his lobe and the shell of his ear. Thomas shivered, losing his strength, and that was enough for Lucille to guide them both forward until they were closer to the mirrors and her body was flush against his.

“Respond to it,” she murmured again.

He was, without having to think at all. Already his body pressed back against his sister’s, eager for more of what only she, in that moment, could give him.

“Do you like this?” she whispered. Thomas could only stare at their reflections in the mirrors; Lucille trailed a hand down the inside of one of his thighs and stroked one nipple with her other hand through his T-shirt. His cock ached, a visible bulge in his leggings.

“Yes,” he gasped, even as shame twisted within him. “Yes, I like it.” HIs face burned scarlet and he leaned his head back against his sister’s shoulder, breathing out unsteadily. 

_Feel. Respond._

He turned his head towards her suddenly and found that she had her eyes closed, her lips parted, tongue just visible behind her white teeth. Out of impulse than anything else (he told himself), he brought his head forward. He wasn’t sure what his plan was, but he had a feeling he might have kissed her.

So it was just as well that Lucille suddenly took her hands away and stepped back, turning quickly and looking down so that he couldn’t see her face at all, not even in the mirrors.

“You’re so easily seduced,” she said indistinctly, a little too quickly. “ _You_ must seduce _us._ Not the other way around. Keep practicing,” she said, going for her coat and her shoes. The studio door swung shut, leaving Thomas alone with his want and his sick shame. 

He sank to the floor and put his head between his knees, trying to quell his rising nausea. Eventually, it passed, but the bad didn’t go away. 

Tears pricked at his eyes.

He had to go home. Right now. But practice. That was more important than… than anything. He pulled himself to his feet and lifted his arms over his head, rising on his toes. One, two, three, four, five, six… in his mind, she was still touching him and did more… one, two, three, four… she had her hand around his -- 

The world pinwheeled, and Thomas landed hard on his arse on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He’d fallen. Hard. He hadn’t done that in years. Since he was fifteen at most. It was the last straw; he buried his head in his hands and sobbed, curling in on himself the way he would when he was younger. And then Lucille would come and ask what was wrong, but how could she do that now that everything had broken between them like this --

“Are you all right?” 

Thomas wiped his eyes and looked up to see a figure standing in the doorway, one hand on the metal handle. 

“Who’s there?” The figure stepped forward, bending the light a little, and Thomas was granted a brief impression of blonde hair, doll face. She said her name just as he recognized her.

“Edith.” 

She came over, concern etched across her brow. “Can I join you?”

“Er -- yeah, sure --” Thomas wiped at his nose and blinked hard. Edith dropped her duffel bag beside him and then sat down, folding her legs beneath herself nimbly.

“Everything all right?”

“Um -- yeah -- yeah, I’m fine --” 

“Hey --” Edith reached over and touched his arm with the tips of her fingers. “Have you ever considered that you may be working yourself too hard?”

“No -- it’s not that…” He was starting to calm down now. Everything was fine. Just fucking _fine._ “I’m just overreacting.”

“You know, for whatever my opinion is worth, I think that you’re doing wonderfully.” Edith tucked a stray lock of her hair behind one ear. “You’re going to be perfect, no matter what.”

“No. Not perfect.”

“Listen, maybe you should tell your sister that --”

“No!” Thomas winced as his voice echoed off the mirrors. “Sorry. It’s not her. She’s a genius when it comes to things like this. She’s been doing it for years.”

“So have you, haven’t you?”

“She directs. She knows what she’s doing. I’m just a dancer.”

“Well,” Edith said, “I won’t deny that she’s talented.” She grinned suddenly. “Hot too, but -- um -- don’t tell her I said that.” Thomas laughed uncomfortably. His stomach churned, and he found himself longing to vomit. “Seriously, though, is she single?” Still grinning, pink lips over white teeth. “Asking for a friend, of course.” Thomas swallowed hard. His stomach twisted and untwisted.

“No,” he said suddenly. “She’s seeing a man. Really tall. You wouldn’t know him.” He reached for his bag and coat. “I have to go.”

“Hang on a second --” Edith began, but he was already out the door. It clanged shut behind him. 

*

The breath mints that he swallowed after emptying his stomach into the toilet were not enough to mask the bile-taste in his mouth. He wiped at his streaming eyes and fled the bathroom before someone, Edith or custodian or anyone, found him.

*

Thomas slid into bed that night alone. Lucille was still brushing her teeth. He hoped that she’d be a long time about it. The incident in the studio, as he had decided to call it, had altered something in their relationship. It wasn’t that the dynamic between them had changed, merely that they had been suddenly forced to confront the truth that had been staring them in the face for years. They had never been _just_ brother and sister; a deeper and far darker current ran between them, tainting all their relations with each other.

Thomas scratched his back, then stopped immediately as the bathroom door creaked open. But his sister barely seemed to notice as she slipped inside, turned out the light without asking, and slid into bed beside him. Thomas pulled aside to avoid the touch of her silken, just-shaved legs. 

A long, pregnant silence. Lucille seemed about to speak.

She rolled over, away from him. Thomas never heard her breath deepen.

*

The next morning, Lucille took him aside as he headed for his dressing room.

“Edith spoke to me. She said she thought you were getting overwhelmed.” She reached out to touch his shoulder, but then put her hand down at her side again. “Do you need a break?”

“No!” His heart skipped several beats at just the thought. “Why would she say that?”

“I’m serious, Thomas. I’m getting worried about you. You’ve gotten so thin…”

“You don’t need to worry.”

“It’s just that I remember how hard you worked back when Mother and Father were still --” Lucille stopped and began again. “I don’t want to see that happen to you again.” One hand reached down and turned over Thomas’s right hand, thumbing lightly over the scars there. Thomas bit his lip.

“I’m okay,” he said at last. His pulse was quickening; he pulled his hand away. “Edith had no right to say that.”

Lucille studied his face carefully. “All right,” she said. “Get dressed, then.”

*

He ran for his dressing room and immediately jumped into the shower after rehearsal.

It wasn’t that it had gone badly. Just that it hadn’t gone perfectly, either. He rung his hair out and let the hot water cascade over his shoulders, chest, aching legs.

He’d tripped through the last of the fouettés. And again, he and Alan didn’t have the chemistry that Lucille wanted.

“Show me,” she’d kept saying. “Show me how badly you want each other.”

His cock twitched against his thigh, and Thomas thought about trying _the trick_ , as he’d taken to calling it, there in the dressing room shower. But no, he needed to have some limits. Or were those limits what his problem was in the first place? 

No. His problem was that he couldn’t stop thinking about his sister’s breath on the shell of his ear. _At all._

He left the shower, wrapped a towel around his middle, and stepped into the dressing room proper. The large mirror that spanned the sink and vanity, ringed with lights, was as unforgiving as that of a public restroom. Under the harsh lights, every vein felt exposed, his skin a network of red and purple lines. His back itched, but before he could scratch at it, there was a knock at his door.

It was Edith. He stared down at her in surprise -- for some reason, he’d assumed it would be Lucille -- and then clutched the towel around his middle a little tighter. Edith’s eyes traveled from his face down his chest, stopped just short of the danger zone, then returned to his face. Water dripped from his hair onto his shoulders. His skin felt hot, as though the towel weren’t there at all. 

“Hi,” Edith said at last. 

“What are you doing here.”

“I wanted to apologize for yesterday,” she said. “I was prying into your business. Sorry. Lucille told me that you didn’t like that.”

She was out of her dancer’s things, wearing a dark miniskirt and a blouse that rode low enough that Thomas had to work hard not to stare. But she was curvaceous and small and smiled a lot -- she was so unlike Lucille…

“Thanks,” he said. 

“And I was wondering if you’d let me take you out tonight,” she finished. She leaned her forearm against the door jam. “As an apology.”

“Aren’t we onstage tomorrow?”

“Yeah. And you look like you haven’t had a good time in months. Come on.” She gave him one of her smiles, dimpled and impish. “Drinks on me.”

Thomas reached up and ran a hand through his hair, then immediately regretted it as cold water splashed onto his back. Edith’s brow furrowed. She must have seen the scars on his wrist. But to Thomas’s relief, she said nothing.

“All right,” he said finally. “Let me -- let me get dressed.”

*

The bar was already crowded, but Edith winked at the man behind the bar, and suddenly they had a table to themselves, their drinks sweating between them. The last time Thomas had done anything like this had been with Enola. And then that night, she’d taken him home and, well, Thomas drew the curtain on that particular memory. The last thing he wanted was to blush, especially while Edith was talking so animatedly.

“… really, I don’t know why you’re worried,” she said. “From what I’ve seen, you’re phenomenal. And your technique -- just, _damn._ I can’t think of anyone in the company who dances like you.”

“I just want to be perfect,” Thomas murmured, lowering his eyes to his drink. Several of the ice cubes popped. 

“Nobody’s perfect,” Edith said immediately. “But you know what, I think you put that axiom to a hard test.”

Thomas shot her a brief smile, which was returned crooked and a little more suggestive than he’d expected. 

“It’s the Black Swan that’s giving you problems, right?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“What you need is to know how a woman moves,” she said. “Men and women are both capable of being sexual, but they’re sexual in different ways. Women, we curl around our partners, we touch more, we --” she interrupted herself -- “Men are essentially aggressive, women…” She bit her lip. “I won’t say we’re submissive because trust me, we can totally take what we want, but… we are exploitive. We take the scenic route where a man takes the shortcut.”

“Listen, Edith, I appreciate this and all, but I _have_ slept with a woman before. I know.”

Edith leaned back in her chair, drink in hand. “Well, if you don’t mind my saying, that is quite the confession coming from a man in ballet. You are full of surprises.”

“Don’t get too excited, I’m bi.”

Edith raised her drink. “ _Moi aussi._ ”

They clinked glasses; Edith finished hers in a gulp and laid it with a hollow thunk back on the table. “What you need to see,” she said, “is how a woman seduces.”

“Dear God.” Thomas covered his mouth, beginning to blush. 

“I’m serious, watch and learn.”

And with that, she stood and surveyed the bar as a whole. Thomas looked around at the other patrons, curious to see what she was looking for. But she was already heading for a man in the nearest corner, partially obscured by shadow. She stood there at his seat, spoke with him for several seconds, and then sat down casually on the side of his table. She laughed and tucked some of her hair behind her ear.

Then the stranger handed her something, and Edith bent down and kissed him full on the lips. Thomas nearly choked on his drink.

She sat down in front of him again, flushed with victory as she held up something small and white between her thumb and forefinger.

“Look what I got,” she said. 

“What is it?”

“The man said he’d give me one if I kissed him. It’s X,” she added in a lower tone. Thomas nearly choked again.

“Edith, we’re going onstage tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow’s a long way off.” Edith carefully broke the pill into two and crushed one half of it into the small amount of gin left in the bottom of her glass. Then she knocked it back. “If my dad saw me now, it’d break his heart,” she muttered, mostly to herself. Thomas didn’t know what to say. Then she brightened and pushed the other pill towards him. “You take that.” 

Thomas held up his hands. “No, I really shouldn’t --”

“I’m not saying you have to take it tonight,” she said. “Just keep it. You never know.”

“I really…”

“Sometimes you just have to feel good, you know?”

Thomas thought of the ease with which she’d kissed the stranger, and of Lucille’s voice in his ear, _let it go._ That thought brought up a host of other, far more discomfiting memories. 

He put the pill in his wallet, for lack of any place else, and stood up. His chair scraped over the linoleum. Edith looked up at him, startled.

“Let’s go someplace else?” he suggested.

*

So they went to another bar, and that time Thomas watched Edith chat up a young couple, leaning against the bar and cocking her head to the side, nodding along to the conversation. The woman seemed flattered, the man not so much. Over their heads, Edith threw Thomas a wink and clicked her tongue. Another young woman made eye contact with him from across the room, but he dropped his gaze, and soon enough, Edith was stringing the couple behind her, _Thomas, there’s a club I know, let’s all go…_

* 

Hard lights, harder music, the bass thumping in his ears and his ribcage. It was hard to remember that there was no wrong way to dance; he found himself constantly wondering if his legs were correct, was his technique polished enough, one, two, three, four, five… He looked around and found Edith leaving the dancefloor with the woman from the couple in tow, heading towards the bathrooms, or maybe the glowing EXIT sign. The man was nowhere to be seen. He felt an absurd feeling of loneliness. With fumbling fingers, he reached for his wallet and swallowed the pill dry. 

Strange hands wrapped around his chest, snaked downward, and someone muttered, _Jesus, you’re fit_ , or possibly, _Jesus, you’re shit_ , in his ear. It was hard to tell beneath the roar of the music. Anyway, it didn’t matter. He turned and found the hands and the voice to belong to a man in his twenties, tall and dark. On impulse, he kissed him, and the kiss felt electrified. Softer than normal, like a flash of heat lightning in his nervous system. 

More kissing, with different people. Boys, girls, people he couldn’t tell. Gender stopped being interesting. At some point, he had a brief moment of lucidity -- cold air, outside of the club, girl pressed between himself and the wall, her little _ah, ah, ah’s_ bizarrely endearing -- before the haze descended again. 

It helped to keep a tally of what was real. His back itched. That was real. So was the floor. So was the momentary flash of red eyes that seemed to be everywhere at once -- no, that couldn’t be real, could it? The itch on his back. The floor. Edith’s gaze. Smeared lipstick. Her hand on his wrist. _Come on, we should go._

“Where?” 

“To the moon and back!” 

And Thomas understood.

*

They stumbled together, hand-in-hand, down the hall of his apartment, giggling and trying shush each other.

“Look, we’ve _got_ to be quiet...” Thomas covered his mouth to stifle a laugh. The walls were spinning around him as he led Edith to the guest bedroom, and the floor seemed almost to be undulating beneath his feet… Couldn’t let her see his sister sleeping in his bed…  that’d be weird… it _was_ weird… why did they still do that? “We’ve got to be --”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you quiet.” Edith grinned and pressed her mouth against his, pinning him against the wall beside the door. Her hand trailed down his chest, over his thighs, teasing at his hardening cock as she held him there, pinned as her tongue slipped into his mouth. It was incredible how someone so small could possess so much strength. Dancer skills. She grabbed his shoulders, still kissing him, and stepped backward, pulling him into the bedroom after herself.

Both of them were drunk and high and not at their best. Thomas left finesse and his clothes on the floor, content to let Edith guide him to the bed, watching her unbutton her skirt and her blouse. Hungry, sloppy kiss as she climbed into his lap. She was wearing one of those lace bras without the padding, and Thomas couldn’t seem to make his fingers work in the way necessary to undo the clasp. Eventually, still kissing him, Edith reached behind to do it herself. Her knee pressed between his legs, rubbing through the cloth of his boxer-briefs as she leaned across him, full-body. Obediently, he lay back, kissing the curve of one small breast, running his hands over her back and under her panties, over her buttocks. 

Edith straightened up just long enough to pull her panties off and toss them over the side of the bed -- pastel blue against the ivory carpet. Then she hooked her fingers underneath the band of his own underwear and pulled them down around his knees, hair falling in a curtain around her face as cold air washed over him. He kicked them to the foot of the bed and felt a flutter in his stomach as she kissed him once more.

She was intoxicatingly soft in his arms -- Thomas was almost afraid he would break her if they rolled over. But Edith seemed perfectly at home where she was, her hand wrapped around his cock as they kissed, tongues going every which way. Their fingers brushed together as Thomas joined in. 

He began to thrust into her hand, and she abruptly took it away, half-smiling at his soft moan of surprise and protest as she crawled over him, pausing with one knee beside his head.

“Do you mind?”

“Mm. Not at all,” said Thomas, taking himself in hand, and lifted his head to brush a kiss to her pubic bone. Pink lines from the seams of her panties showed around her thighs and pelvis in contrast to the more muted, wet pink of her cunt. He lay his head back against the pillows as she carefully settled over his mouth, then ran his tongue over her clitoris, smiling at her sigh. Again. Again. He heard a creak over his head when she grabbed the headboard to steady herself, moving her hips back and forth against his mouth. Gently teasing the tip of his tongue inside of her -- Edith groaned -- he resumed the pulls at his cock, no reason why he couldn’t have some fun as well… She tasted at once sweet and salty, the way caramel did. 

His back stung suddenly, as if someone had scratched it and drawn blood. He shifted against the mattress to try and provide some relief. His body felt taut, blood slamming through his veins. Distantly, he thought, _perhaps this is what she meant by letting go._

Jaw beginning to ache, he was relieved when Edith shuddered over him with a startlingly loud cry, those delicate folds pulsing from the force of her orgasm. Sighing, she rolled over beside him, seeming for the moment unconcerned with Thomas and his erection.

“That was amazing.” Something about her voice didn’t sound right. Thomas looked to his right and froze. 

He was staring at himself. Naked, stretched out over the mattress. Hair tousled. As if someone had placed a mirror on the bed. But the Thomas he watched grinned of his own accord, said _thanks_ , and then seized one of the extra pillows. The last impression of the world that he had was of the pillow coming towards his face and then darkness.

*

Light, streaming through the window. Bright ceiling. Different bed. His head ached, his back itched, and worst, a sick sense of shame had settled in his belly already. And he was alone. No sign that Edith had even been there. 

He rose mechanically and went out to the kitchen. 

He could understand why she might have left, and honestly, he was a little relieved -- if she and Lucille had run into each other, God only knew what would happen -- but he wished that she’d said something. 

There was something else about last night that had happened. He couldn’t remember it. Probably wasn’t important.

It was only as he was grabbing a banana that he noticed the time on the kitchen clock. 

10 AM. 

He dropped the banana and bolted for his bedroom.

*

It was approaching 10:20 by the time he reached the theater proper. Heart racing, he dropped his duffel bag backstage and walked towards the wing entrance. And stopped dead.

Dressed in the black and white costume that the company wore in the final scene, Edith was dancing center stage. Thomas watched in dismay as she turned en pointe and soared into Alan’s arms. They were perfect together, flying across the stage, Edith hurling herself into every movement. But even that wasn’t what made Thomas’s lip tremble.

It was the look of pride and approval on his sister’s face that tipped him over the edge.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and be sure to comment! I'm on tumblr @williamshakennotstirred and my Crimson Peak sideblog is @beautifulfragilethings if you want to chat!


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